Whoa…Slow Down, Bing Ads!

December 2, 2013

It’s been said that when “You miss a day, you miss alot”. Admittedly, a few months have passed I last logged in to my Bing advertising account, but it appears that “alot” is an understatement. Microsoft is once again following the lead of Google by implementing the “one password to rule them all” requirement to the Bing ads platform:

This is a curious move by Microsoft, forcing advertisers who may have no interest in their other services to sign up for an additional account in order to spend money with them. While we understand that we are in the midst of “arms race” of sorts in regards to online data, this move strikes us as a bit heavy handed by the number two platform in search marketing.

Will this new requirement alienate marketers who have no other user for Microsoft services online? Will marketers simply “go with the flow”? Can we expect Microsoft to trumpet their recent “growth” to stockholders?

What are your thoughts on this new requirement? Sound off in the comments below!

Interesting points, T! I agree that Bing power users will go with the flow. I’m curious what the impact, if any, there will be on marketers who don’t necessarily view Bing ads as a “must have” for their marketing mix. We tend to utilize Bing as more of a secondary platform for most of our campaigns (as you can tell by our surprise to the change), so the new requirement made us pause.